jrgordonsenior

This will be long but I have lots to cover about shaved R888's....

We had 10 or 11 Spec Boxster for the weekend races Sat & Sun. Conditions were sunny but really windy, probably a consistent 25 mph across the track for all 3 days. I've had my car out twice previously, a CCW day at Buttonwillow, and CW at Willow the previous week. The Toyos therefore had 11 HC's going into Friday's practice. BW is a relatively smooth surface while Willow Springs is much less so. Friday they were good for about 5 more cycles then they became greasy and not quite corded on the inside of the leftside (outside) tires both front and rear. I have 3.25 neg camber up front, about 2.5 in the rears.

So I put on my new set of shaved R888's and went out and ran 5 laps at about 75-80% to cycle the tires. I then put my car up on stands until Sat. morning. We had 2 practices, qual, and then a 35 min. race for Sat. I ran a consistent low-mid 1:35's on Friday on the older Toyos, I couldn't get below 1:36 on the shaved set in either practice. They simply didn't have the grip of the full depth tires especially up front. The car suddeny develped major understeer. In qual I went off left at the entry to turn 9 which is taken in high gear at speed. I was lucky and spun around and kept going, another Spec Boxster totalled in the same spot Sunday (driver OK). I set my front bar to full soft and went out 4th in the race. Within a few laps it was obvious the sway bar adjustment wasn't going to help, the car had major push. I ran half the race pointing some other Spec Boxsters by then I retired before I hurt anybody. My best lap was a 1:39 far off my 1:35 on 12 cycled full depth tires.

The tires, which now had 5 cycles including the first warm up cycle, looked like bleep. We all gathered around them wondering how they could look so beat in just 5 sessions. One of the spec 944 guys came over (there were 19 of them racing) and he had just had the same expericence with their first set of shaved R888's. Apparently we were the test dummies (literally) for shaving.

Sunday morning I had a new set of unshaved R888's mounted but I took the shaved set out one more time to see if anything was different. They were not any better, I turned in the 1:39's. So I mounted up the new full depth stickers for qual and turned a 1:34.2 on my first lap and came back in. The car had incredible grip, I was so stunned I had to pit. I had just improved my lap times by a full 5 seconds over the shaved Toyos. We ran 2, 7 lap races back to back Sunday with no time to check pressures between races. The car was tight in the first race, slippery in the second. When I checked my pressures after the final race the rears were at 46 and the fronts 42. I had forgotten to bleed them after qual. Oops...

Outside of the tire issues the car ran perfectly. Blake Rosser won all the "Red" races in his RSR, and all 3 Spec Boxster races too. He literally ran from the RSR to his Spec Boxster waiting on grid for him so we could start the races. He said it took a few turns before he realized he didn't have 500 HP anymore....

Veloce Raptor

Wow, VERY interesting, thanks!

chris walrod

Gordon, thanks for the update. This may well be worth a call to Toyo to see what is going on with that shaved set. Seems peculiar to me.

Sounds as though you had a good time, which is the most important aspect.

What did you guys ever do for diffs?

Sean F

that is odd. i thought that the composition of the 888 was the same as the RA1? My experience with RA1's is the exact opposite.

Veloce Raptor

^^^ yeah, same here ^^^

jrgordonsenior

Nothing unfortunately. We lost another Spec Boxster that went off by itself in T9and found the dirt berm in front of the wall. I wonder if a diff would have helped....

earlyapex

Is the series running Toyos or are tires open?

R888 require different suspension setting?

Thanks for the right up. Willow Springs must be very bumpy if you thing BW is smooth!

OBTW, Thunderhill is going to be resurfaced this July! YAHOO!

Cory M

Interesting tire test results, seems to go against the normal practice for RA1's. If they are faster unshaved I just saved $60/set The 15 heat cycle life is very disapointing though, I get 25+ from my RA1's. Maybe you can get more life with a different alignment.

How do you compare running your cup in the red group versus boxster in orange?

jrgordonsenior

The spec series tires are Toyo R888's only. I was refering to the surface of the track as being smooth when compared to WS which is like 100 grit.....

Cory save your $60. which is really saving $960......

JW in Texas

FWIW, I had the same experience @ TWS a few weeks ago. I thought it was set-up issues since I took the car MAJOR off-road & broke stuff the weekend before. I had driven the car on the used Hankooks it came with previously up here @ ECR & it drove great. Put on shaved R888s for TWS & it sucked. Wouldn't turn in & under-steered like a pig. Watkins ran un-shaved the same weekend & loved them so.....

PS: I plan on trying them back-to-back like John did @ Heartland in a few weeks.

amondc

I guess I will hold off on ordering some tires till after Heartland...Let me know barbie....

M758

That is good info to hear about shaving. Around here Bryan Shackelford does not recommend shaving the R888.

JW in Texas

Will do, big boy

PS: I assume you have seen the post Bill started over on the BSR Forum about this.

amondc

Thanks..and yes

multi21

The R888s do not have the same life as the RA1. At a time trial at Streets of Willow, the 888 got very slippery as the tread depth was worn away. With the RA1 you could get consistant lap times down to the cords. What I found was that lap times went up and it was harder and harder to control the slip angle as they wore.

When they were nearly slicks, they acted like cycled out Michelin Cup tires rather than RA1.

You have to go with the 888s for the spec racing, but I've decided to go back to Nittos NT01. Same compound as 888, but they provided consistant grip down to the cords. My .02 and I'm sticking to it.